Grafton boys’ frenzied postseason run ends in grip of hard-pressing, hot-shooting Pulaski basketball team

One step away from booking its first trip to a WIAA state tournament in 19 years, the Grafton boys’ basketball team stumbled a bit last Saturday afternoon.

It wasn’t a matter of the Black Hawks stumbling on their own, though.

It took Pulaski, a formidable foe armed with harassing defense and a sharp-shooting star, to end Grafton’s improbable postseason run.

“We had trouble handling their defense. We were a little short at the guard position,” said Hawks coach Bob Maronde, whose team bowed, 53-37, in a Division 2 sectional title game at Fond du Lac High School.

“Pulaski shot the ball very well and put us in a hole early. It was tough to come back against a team that played that well.”

The top-seeded Red Raiders, fresh off a sectional-semifinal win over Seymour, wasted no time turning up the heat on fifth-seeded Grafton in the battle for a state berth.

After Scott Tyler’s three-pointer gave the Hawks a 3-0 lead, Pulaski went on an 11-0 run and never looked back. Senior forward Cody Wichmann scored seven of his game-high 29 points during the surge, which was sparked by a 1-3-1 half-court trap that forced four Grafton turnovers in the first period.

The Hawks stayed within striking distance in the second quarter, cutting the deficit to 17-11 on a pair of Tyler free throws with four minutes left.